Prose / How to Encourage Girls in Math & Science

Current Publisher:
Dale Seymour

First edition:
Prentice-Hall, 1982

0-86651-323-X
paper, 192 pages, $17.50

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This practical, informative book explains how teachers and parents can help girls develop the skills and confidence to pursue a full range of interests and careers in math and science. How to Encourage Girls in Math and Science reveals how sex-role socialization—adult expectations, early childhood practices, toys and games—influences a child’s skill development and attitudes toward learning. It provides specific strategies and activities that you can use to improve girls’ problem-solving skills and build trust in their intellectual abilities.

Aimed and kindergarten through eighth-grade children, How to Encourage Girls in Math and Science offers teachers and parents a wealth of material that encourages learning—and enjoyment—of math and science. The book explains:

• how to build on girls’ verbal and interpersonal skills in learning math and science

• why girls and boys in the same classroom can learn different lessons

• how to help girls develop spatial skills

• how to help girls become scientific investigators

• why more girls come to view failure as a result of innate inability

• how to build confidence and reduce learning anxiety

• how to improve a girl’s logical reasoning ability and understanding of numbers

• and much more

From How to Encourage Girls in Math and Science

It is a fact of American life today that family survival is dependent on the abilities and incomes of all adults. The kinds of mathematical and technical skills we need to care for our own needs, to be creative, and to survive in the job market escalate daily. At the current pace, computer technology may soon be as basic to literacy as reading and writing. As a society, we cannot afford to inhibit the creativity of over half our population. In these times of economic and environmental crisis, the quality and effectiveness of our social solutions depend on the perspectives that women, as well as men, bring to science and technology.